A Perfect Murder: Difference between revisions
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==Plot summary== |
==Plot summary== |
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Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) is a Wall Street hedge fund manager who has risen a long way to achieve his riches. His successful investments and speculations allow him to live an extravagant upper-class lifestyle with his wife, Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow). Emily seems like a devoted, faithful wife, but in reality, she has an affair with a penniless painter, David (Viggo Mortensen). Although she thinks herself safe, Steve knows everything about the affair, and has also been able to uncover the painter’s dark past. One day he pays the artist a visit and confronts him with knowledge about the affair and the fact that Taylor knows about the artist’s prison time and past con games against rich women. He also sees the wedding ring that Emily left. All seems lost for the artist… until Taylor makes him an offer. He is willing to pay $500,000 in cash for the death of his wife. Taylor has already laid out a detailed plan, one which will supply him with a firm alibi and keep the murder from being traced to his wife’s lover. He prepares the final steps and leaves the house that night for a game of cards with friends. When he returns later that night, he finds his wife alive and the masked killer dead in a pool of his own blood. When police officers remove the mask, the killer is not who Steve expected. Before him lies a total stranger… someone who David had hired to do the wet work |
Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) is a Wall Street hedge fund manager who has risen a long way to achieve his riches. His successful investments and speculations allow him to live an extravagant upper-class lifestyle with his wife, Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow). Emily seems like a devoted, faithful wife, but in reality, she has an affair with a penniless painter, David (Viggo Mortensen). Although she thinks herself safe, Steve knows everything about the affair, and has also been able to uncover the painter’s dark past. One day he pays the artist a visit and confronts him with knowledge about the affair and the fact that Taylor knows about the artist’s prison time and past con games against rich women. He also sees the wedding ring that Emily left. All seems lost for the artist… until Taylor makes him an offer. He is willing to pay $500,000 in cash for the death of his wife. Taylor has already laid out a detailed plan, one which will supply him with a firm alibi and keep the murder from being traced to his wife’s lover. He prepares the final steps and leaves the house that night for a game of cards with friends. When he returns later that night, he finds his wife alive and the masked killer dead in a pool of his own blood. When police officers remove the mask, the killer is not who Steve expected. Before him lies a total stranger… someone who David had hired to do the "wet work." Later on, Steven takes Emily to her mother's house, and Emily attempts to call David to let him know that she's alright, but David thinks that she's dead. Someone calls again but when David picks up, it is not Emily, but Steven saying "we have something to talk about." They meet on a boat and recap what happened the night before, with David asking, "Do I continue to see your wife or what?" Meanwhile, Emily tells her mother that she is going to break up with Steven. Then she goes back to the scene of the crime, mysteriously remembering what had happened, and then someone walks in on her. It is Steven, saying that she had left the front door wide open. She then tells Steven that she can't stay any longer with him and that she will be staying with her friend. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Steven is in serious financial trouble, and he had planned to kill Emily not only for cheating on him, but also for her money. |
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==Cast== |
==Cast== |
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Revision as of 19:28, 16 June 2008
| A Perfect Murder | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Andrew Davis |
| Written by | Patrick Smith Kelly |
| Produced by | Arnold Kopelson Anne Kopelson Peter Macgregor-Scott Christopher Mankiewicz |
| Starring | Michael Douglas Gwyneth Paltrow Viggo Mortensen David Suchet |
| Cinematography | Dariusz Wolski |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates | June 5, 1998 |
Running time | 108 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $50-60 million (approx) |
A Perfect Murder is a 1998 thriller film, made by Kopelson Entertainment and Warner Bros.. It was directed by Andrew Davis and starred Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen. It is a remake of the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film Dial M for Murder, though the characters of Halliday and Lesgate are combined. The screenplay was by Patrick Smith Kelly based on the play by Frederick Knott.
Plot summary
 |
Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) is a Wall Street hedge fund manager who has risen a long way to achieve his riches. His successful investments and speculations allow him to live an extravagant upper-class lifestyle with his wife, Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow). Emily seems like a devoted, faithful wife, but in reality, she has an affair with a penniless painter, David (Viggo Mortensen). Although she thinks herself safe, Steve knows everything about the affair, and has also been able to uncover the painter’s dark past. One day he pays the artist a visit and confronts him with knowledge about the affair and the fact that Taylor knows about the artist’s prison time and past con games against rich women. He also sees the wedding ring that Emily left. All seems lost for the artist… until Taylor makes him an offer. He is willing to pay $500,000 in cash for the death of his wife. Taylor has already laid out a detailed plan, one which will supply him with a firm alibi and keep the murder from being traced to his wife’s lover. He prepares the final steps and leaves the house that night for a game of cards with friends. When he returns later that night, he finds his wife alive and the masked killer dead in a pool of his own blood. When police officers remove the mask, the killer is not who Steve expected. Before him lies a total stranger… someone who David had hired to do the "wet work." Later on, Steven takes Emily to her mother's house, and Emily attempts to call David to let him know that she's alright, but David thinks that she's dead. Someone calls again but when David picks up, it is not Emily, but Steven saying "we have something to talk about." They meet on a boat and recap what happened the night before, with David asking, "Do I continue to see your wife or what?" Meanwhile, Emily tells her mother that she is going to break up with Steven. Then she goes back to the scene of the crime, mysteriously remembering what had happened, and then someone walks in on her. It is Steven, saying that she had left the front door wide open. She then tells Steven that she can't stay any longer with him and that she will be staying with her friend. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Steven is in serious financial trouble, and he had planned to kill Emily not only for cheating on him, but also for her money.
Cast
- Michael Douglas as Steven Taylor
- Gwyneth Paltrow as Emily Bradford Taylor
- Viggo Mortensen as David Shaw
- David Suchet as Mohamed Karaman
- Sarita Choudhury as Raquel Martinez
- Michael P. Moran as Bobby Fain
- Novella Nelson as Ambassador Alice Wills
- Constance Towers as Sandra Bradford
Trivia
- The Hindi movie Humraaz was a remake of this movie.
- Viggo Mortensen is an accomplished painter, and all David's artworks are Mortensen's own.
- The Tamil movie "Girivalam" was a remake of this film.
External links
- Articles needing cleanup from December 2007
- Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from December 2007
- Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from December 2007
- 1998 films
- Film remakes
- Thriller films
- Films based on plays
- Films directed by Andrew Davis
- American films
- English-language films
- Warner Bros. films
- Neo-noir